Kiss this
by Bald as Malak
Summary: How Malak lost his jaw. A last moment entry for Trillian's Challenge.


**Kiss This**

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A last moment entry for Trillian's Challenge: How Malak Lost his Jaw

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There was a time when we used to share laughter almost every day. There was always some adventure to be had, some prank to be pulled, some book to be shared over a late night's cup of Dantooine Flash Fire.

I remember when she first fell in love. Revan was eleven years old and there was this Jedi Knight who had just arrived to serve under Master Vrook by the name of Jeb. He was a tall with a square jaw, rippling with muscles, and a head full of red hair. She followed him everywhere she could, until I joked one night that the Masters were contemplating making the bathrooms unisex because my besotted friend had followed Jeb into the men's one so often.

The Masters took a different action, of course. Concerned about the distraction of their best Padawan, they found an excuse to reassign Jeb to Coruscant instead. I consoled Revan for a week after that.

The next man she fell for was Master Kavar, who arrived at the Dantooine Academy when my friend was fourteen. Tall and lean, Master Kavar was a serious man who took his duties seriously, and yet could light the classroom with laughter with a joke. Sometimes, when we were getting too cocky or rambunctious, Master Kavar would also tell us stories about the wars he had fought in or missions on which he had served. He had a way of telling those episodes in a way that wasn't too graphic for our young, impressionable minds, and yet making them scary and real enough that young, eager students such as myself came to understand that the duties we would undertake and the power we had inherited came with a price: danger and temptation.

Unfortunately, she was so smitten with our new teacher that all she heard was the parts about his bravery and competence, without absorbing the lessons he intended to impart.

Perhaps she also missed those lessons when she became aware of another who was seeking Master Kavar's attention, the very pretty and charismatic Suni Kay. Suni was seventeen, and a senior Padawan about to become a Knight. She was, like my friend, a gifted student, but light and happy where my friend tended to be intense, almost overwhelming.

After that, Revan went out of her way to compete with Suni, which was difficult for me since I've been a good friend of both of them since I first came here. I tried to stay neutral through the whole thing that followed, and I managed it. It wasn't easy, though. I don't think Revan completely forgave me for not taking her side, but we remained close until the day that Master Kavar left on a mission… with Suni who had just been promoted to a Jedi Knight.

After that, Revan and I spent even more time together. The competition for Master Kavar's attention had changed my friend, especially because she felt that she had lost. I tried to tell her that they had both lost, because it was clear to me that Master Kavar had never been interested in either of them, but Revan would never listen to me. She swore to me during one night's session of drinking Dantooine Flash Fire that she would never let another beat her again. The next morning, I dismissed the intensity of that statement, the fires burning I had perceived burning in her eyes, telling myself that it was the Flash Fire's effects that had made me see it, or had made Revan seem so… I still can't put a word to what I saw that night in her.

After that night of drunkenness, I never heard about Suni again. Instead, Revan focused her attentions on her studies, even more than before, and I was forced to follow. I wasn't about to be left behind by Revan too, now that Suni had left. I was already two years older than Revan, so I had to keep up with her.

There was one thing that I never told Revan. Suni had never really been after Master Kavar, because she had already had another who had captured her attention. Me. We had carried out a small affair during Suni's last year at the Academy, one that I had kept hidden from Revan. Suni had wanted me to tell Revan our secret, so that Revan would stop her feud against my lover, but I told her it was not a good idea. Revan was very upset about the supposed competition for Master Kavar, but I think she would have lost it completely if she had known that her one true friend had been seduced instead.

Besides, I had told myself, there's no point in telling people about something that's not too serious anyway. I knew that Suni would soon be leaving as a Jedi Knight, and there would be no way for us to continue as lovers after that. Once she left, it was unlikely that we would see each other very often at all.

After Suni left, I spent even more time with Revan than I ever had, at least until we graduated. We were completely focused on passing our exams, studying late into the night almost every day and practicing our skills in the training rooms early in the morning. We were almost inseparable and people starting wondering if there was something going on between us. I always told them no, and Revan never acted like a lover, so most people never took the speculation too far.

We became Jedi Knights on the same day, and soon after we faced the moment where we would part. I hadn't realized how hard that would be until we stood at the space port. Revan had her bags beside her; she was about to leave to join Master Wenk, a Jedi who specialized in gathering information and promoting peaceful negotiations. His official role was that of diplomat, but I knew without being told that there was more to his portfolio. No diplomat would take on Revan, who was too direct and unforgiving to be of much use. But if he was a spy… then Revan would be the perfect assistant.

I never voiced my suspicions to Revan, but I'm sure she had figured out the nature of her assignment as soon as they had offered it to her. I do know that she was happy with it.

A week later, I joined on with Master Nondo to help train Padawans in Coruscant.

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It was on her missions with Master Wenk that Revan was first introduced to the possible threat of the Mandalorians. She quickly began pressing Master Wenk to take them more seriously, but he, like so many others in the Republic, thought that they would never dare take on our nation. Everyone thought that we were too big for the Mandalorians, that we had too many ships and soldiers and that any invasion would be suicide. Only Revan believed that they were a threat.

She came to me one night during a short vacation she had taken from work. She must have spent almost all of her time off traveling to and from my location, and at first I had scolded her for wasting her time, especially since she looked so tired.

Revan waved off my concern, and began almost immediately laying out the reasons why I should join her in mobilizing the Jedi to meet the Mandalorian threat. I found her case to be surprisingly convincing. I, like so many others, had believed the assessments provided by the media and my fellow Jedi, but Revan changed my opinion in a night and I swore that I would leave my Master and join her in recruiting Jedi for the war Revan believed would come before the end of the year.

It came the next day instead. Revan and I borrowed a ship as quickly as we could, and headed towards Coruscant.

It took only a few days at the Jedi Temple before I realized how much the past two years had changed Revan. The intensity was still there, but Revan had learned how to focus it towards swaying people to her cause. And as the weeks followed, and more and more young Jedi joined our cause, I realized that her charisma was much greater than I thought. She had a knack of tuning her pitch to the person or crowd she addressed, until she had them eating out of her hands. Within a month, we had recruited a thousand Jedi to our cause, nearly half of the total number under the auspices of the Jedi Council.

We joined the war brimming with confidence. The Mandalorians had no Force users, so we believed that we would quickly turn the tide and end the war. We were so wrong. If anything, our presence made the Mandalorians fight harder, smarter than before, and we began to despair as our numbers began to fall quickly to the Mandalorian traps and tactics.

After each battle, Revan would go on and on about the inadequacy of the Republic tactics.

Two months after we joined the war, after we had lost another battle, this time on Serroco, Revan, with me by her side, stormed into the Republic command offices and demanded a role in deciding the strategies of the navy. Never have I seen her be so persuasive, so undeniable. She was admitted to the strategic command council that night. Two months later, she commanded it.

After that, we began to win the war, though we still lost many battles. People think that it was Revan's tactics that won the war, but it was something more than that. Revan had this ability to see the whole war at the same time. She knew what battles needed to be lost, which ones to avoid, and which ones needed to be won, no matter what the sacrifice. I don't know how she did it, though I served as her second from day one. She could never explain it to me, but she was effective and I trusted her, so I learned to support her without question.

Maybe that's the reason why I let her into my bed after our victory on Dxun. She had come to my room after the news of the last victory with three bottles of the best Dantooine Flash Fire, our favorite drink. We had consumed way too much of the potent alcohol, and by the end of the third bottle, I had no idea of what I was doing. It was only the next morning, when I woke up with a warm body beside my own, and a warm hand that had already stirred me into urgency, that I discovered what we had done. She climbed onto me before I could fight through the fog of the last night's debauchery, and then I couldn't think at all.

Afterwards, I lay there stunned, unsure what to make of the events of the last night and morning. Had we become lovers, or had we just passed a pleasant evening as friends? I opened my mouth to ask, but she put her hand over it before I could shape words. Then she patted my cheek and walked off, grabbing her clothes on the way to the fresher.

Nothing changed after that, except that each time we won a battle, I knew I would have a visitor that evening.

And then, as we pushed the Mandalorians out of Republic space into their initial empire, I discovered that Suni was commanding one of the other fleets.

It was only at that moment that I realized how much I had missed my former lover, when the voicing of her name by a passing ensign set off a symphony of feeling that echoed in the emptiness of her absence.

Without thinking, and I should have thought, I commandeered a shuttle and flew out to her fleet two systems away. She met me in the shuttle bay as soon as I landed. Maybe, like me, she hadn't known how she felt about us until I approached, or maybe she had just stayed silent the whole time. Whatever the case, it seemed that she was as happy to see me as I was her. Certainly, it seemed to take everything we had not to take each other there right on the landing bay floor, in front of the whole crew.

We spent two wonderful days and nights together, and then I received a call from Revan, summoning back to her side. The ultimate battle was approaching, my friend said. I looked at her face as we spoke, trying to see if there she was angry at me, jealous. When she saw my concern, Revan just smiled, saying that it was alright. We were friends, nothing more, and she would find with whom to celebrate the next victory.

After instructing me on where to meet her fleet, Revan asked me to leave the room, saying that she had some instructions for Suni that were for her ears only. I nodded, understanding. Revan often did this, giving orders to commanders and special units for their ears only.

When I arrived on Revan's ship, we headed off to Malachor V.

Revan's plan worked almost perfectly, except that it backfired on Suni's fleet, killing most of them along with the entire Mandalorian fleet. Suni herself survived, but when I found her, she was more a ghost than anything else.

I took Suni to my rooms and put her to bed. I cared for her for two weeks, spooning food into her, reading her stories, stroking her hand when she fell asleep, but nothing worked. She just seemed empty inside, or cut off so thoroughly from everything else that I couldn't reach her.

After two weeks, Revan came to me, telling me that her fleet needed to pursue the Mandalorians once more. There was another fleet out there, one that was being prepared to strike at the Republic once it became complacent again. She started to lay out the reasons why, her face full of concern but I stopped her. I told her that I would follow her, that I trusted her implicitly.

Then she told me that Suni should be left behind, with the other wounded. Where we go, she said, only the strong can survive.

Leaving Suni behind was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I believed Revan. I believed in her. I made sure that Suni was put under the best care I could find under such short notice, and I left her a note saying that I would find her after the war, no matter what it took. And then I left with Revan.

After that, I just did what Revan asked me to. She started telling me of another war, against a foe much more dangerous than the Mandalorians. I followed. We needed better weapons, and Revan thought she knew a place to build them. I followed. Revan was finding the path difficult and she needed someone to just be there for her. She knew that I was still in love with Suni, but could I just comfort her, give a gift to a friend knowing that there were no strings attached. Her eyes were filled with tears, her face wan and tired, so I let her into my bed. At first, it was only one night, but then the next week, she needed it again. And after that, the visits became more frequent.

Then, one night, her third visit that week after finding the Star Forge, I told her no.

I did it because I realized that I was starting to forget about Suni, that I was finding it harder and harder to find love in my heart for her, or for anyone. I needed to get some space, to start thinking about the changes I felt happening within me.

When I told her, Revan just smiled at me and then things went hazy and I woke up with her cuddled next to me in bed. I tried to puzzle out what had happened, how I had changed my mind, but I couldn't remember it. I couldn't remember the last twelve hours clearly at all.

I tried to deny her again the next night, and the same thing happened and I realized that she was forcing me, using her power to influence my mind. Furious, I confronted her on the bridge, sending her underlings scurrying away so that I could have it out with her.

Revan listened calmly to my furious questions, and then patted me on the cheek. "Be a good boy, and do your job. I'll see you tonight." I opened up my mouth to protest, but then I found myself turning away, marching towards my tasks though my mind screamed for me to stop, to regain control over my body. I couldn't and the night visits continued.

Revan started to delight in demonstrating her control over me. Every time we met in the hallways, she would lift up her mask and kiss me full on the lips, and then smile at the hooting Sith around us. Each time, she would then pat me on the cheek and send me away. I felt like a dog.

Then one day, when I had woken up once again with Revan by my side and no memory of the previous night, I knew I had to do something.

Not for Suni, because I couldn't imagine being with her, or anyone for that matter, after all this. Not even for me, for I knew I was lost beyond all hope of redemption. No, it was more primal than that, I needed to do something in protest, something that would speak to the pain and horror that had sunk their claws into me irrevocably.

I searched my mind for something that I could do, but my hands already knew the answer. Without thought, my lightsaber flew from the side table into my hands, igniting as soon as it slapped into my palm. Revan rolled out of the bed, her hands raised and the Force storming into her. But it was not her I was striking at, it was me. With one clean stroke, looking my former friend and now Master in the eyes, I sheared off my jaw.

_Kiss this_, I said into her mind, before the darkness pulled me down.


End file.
